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Denmark - Navy - History

The Danes have, with justice, been considered as more expert seamen than either the Russians or the Swedes, a qualification owing chiefly to their insular situation, and to the great extent of sea coast which belongs to them. They were formerly the most expert sailors of Europe, but long been surpassed by many of their southern neighbours. The Danes, from their insular situation, have long excelled as a maritime people, and are still the most numerous, as well as the most experienced, sailors of any of the kingdoms on the Baltic. Denmark long possessed a considerable navy, though it afforded few of the materials necessary for ship-building.

The Danish navy’s earliest history can be dated to the end of the 1300's, where Queen Margrethe the First (1387-1412) ordered equipping a navy to defend the empire in particular against the Hanseatic League. It is important to remember the kingdom in its entirety, after the Kalmar-union (July 1397), consisted of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. It was originally the nobility and the market towns' duty to both pay for and equip the navy's ships. Not until the rule of Erik of Pomerania (1412-1439) in the 1420's does history mention a navy that included ships owned by the king.

Denmark was during most of the 1500s and early 1600s the predominant naval power in the Baltic. It was necessary for Denmark to retain this vast kingdom of Norway, large possessions in southern Sweden and northern Germany.

August 10, 1510 king Hans Henrik Krummedige appointed "senior captain and captain of all our captains, people and servants, as we now suited and prescribed has to be in the lake. Us and our kingdom and country to service to our and rigens enemies and enemies ". This document, it is estimated that "fleet birth certificate".

Denmark could charge the very lucrative Sound Dues. King Christian IV claimed that Denmark had sovereignty over the Baltic Sea - Dominum Maris Baltici. The king was not any clever diplomat, and in 1643-45 was the Danish navy to both the Swedish Navy and Dutch help fleets. This resulted in the Navy's worst defeat at the Fehmarn Belt 13 October 1644. Denmark had in 1645 and 1658 to cede large areas of land to Sweden.

Introduction of absolute monarchy in 1660 by Frederik III brought with it the gradual rebuilding of the navy. It had been severely neglected since Christian IV's death in 1648. The Admiralty residence, however, had been established in 1655. It was clear, that Denmark-Norway's security was dependent on a strong navy. Particularly since the Swedish boundary had moved forward to Oresound.

In the Scanian war 1675-79 and in the Great Northern War 1709-20 Denmark tried to regain the lost territories back. The Navy did well in these wars. Naval officer Niels Juel (1629-1697) was an excellent naval officer. He led the fleet during the great naval battle July 1, 1677 between Falsterbro and Stevns, where the Danish fleet won a devastating victory over the Swedes. In the following year, he helped modernize the fleet, which had its base at Holmen in Copenhagen. Also the Great Northern War gave birth to a great naval hero, namely Tordenskiold. It was partly thanks to him that the fleet also in this war drew the longest straw against the Swedes.

After the Great Northern War followed a long period of peace. Denmark had during this period the world 5-6. strongest fleet. It did not mean that the fleet was constantly under sail, for it would have been too costly for the Treasury. Most ships were aftaklede at Holmen. If it is pulled up to the war, armed naval personnel Navy ships as on an assembly line from Holmen many depots. The system meant that Denmark could afford to maintain a strong fleet, but it also meant that the country was vulnerable if a hostile power threatened the capital.

In the beginning of the year 1801, the Danish navy consisted of 22 ships of the line fit for service, and seven which were dismasted; of 15 frigates, four brigs, 13 gun-boats, and three praams, besides several vessels on the stocks.

In the early 1800s, Denmark came into conflict with the world's strongest naval power Britain. The British were annoyed that the neutral Denmark earned lots of money selling goods to Britain's enemies. A British naval attack April 2, 1801 Copenhagen. It came to a great sea battle at Copenhagen Red.

Danes lost, but the battle was not decisive to weaken the Danish navy. The British were still uneasy about the threat to the Danish fleet could be against the very important British Baltic trade, so in 1807 they attacked the new Copenhagen this time from the land side.

This naval force has been greatly reduced, or almost entirely annihilated, first by the victory of Lord Nelson, and afterwards by the seizure of their whole fleet by the British in the month of August 1807. After a violent bombardment Copenhagen capitulated, and the British took the entire Danish fleet in the spoils of war - 16 Danish ships of the line, 15 frigates and corvettes and 14 smaller vessels. Thus, Denmark's role as a major naval power played out. The events of 1807, after the loss sustained from Lord Nelson's expedition, nearly annihilated the Danish navy.

After the Napoleonic wars, when Denmark went bankrupt and lost Norway, was the Navy started to build a new fleet. According fleet plan in 1815 was to Denmark in the future should have six ships of the line, eight frigates, eight corvettes or brigs and 80 gunboats. The new fleet was strong enough to block German ports in the Schleswig wars of 1848-51 and 1864. The defeated also a Prussian-Austrian squadron May 9, 1864 at Helgoland in the Navy's preliminary final naval battle.

In 1819, the whole Danish navy, with all the ships in the colonies, amounted only to 5 ships of the line, 7 frigates, 1 cutter, 1 schooner, 1 floating battery, and about 20 smaller vessels of war. There were two hospitals for naval invalids, and an academy of marine cadets instituted in 1701. The naval magazines and docks are situated upon the holms at Copenhagen.

It was known from ancient Norwegian and Icelandic history, that as early as the fourteenth century, a party of Norwegians or Normans emigrated to the eastern part of Greenland, and nothing had been heard of those bold adventurers since. Some tradition, however, now and then prevailed at the Danish settlement on the southern coast, that a colony of foreign era existed high up in the eastern part, but which was completely cut off from all communication with the rest of the world by impenetrable masses of ice.

One object of the 1837 expedition was, therefore, diligently to search for this most interesting hermit colony. In this, the commander of the expedition, Wilhelm August Graah, Esq., then a lieutenant in the Danish navy, fully succeeded, and discovered, after a long search in open boats, and after having suffered immensely from those perils to which navigators in the arctic sea are subject, the Norman colony, for more than four centuries completely secluded from the rest of the world, and, of course, still preserving the habits, customs, manners, and particularly the language of the fourteenth century.

By the late 1870s the naval authorities of Denmark had been wise in avoiding the errowes of other continental countries as to the materials of which their ships are composed. Not a wooden armored ship has been built since 1864; and since 1808 vessels of all the other classes have been built of iron and steel.

The Danish fleet comprised seven armored ships, all built of iron except the original one. The Helgoland, broadside-ship now building, will be the most powerful. Her length is 257 feet 5 inches, extreme breadth 59 feet 2 inches, displacement 5,265 tons, armor 12 inches thick on the water-line, and she is designed to carry one 12-inch, four 10-iuch, and five 5-inch rifle-guns.

Great War

Denmark saw the end of the Great War without having suffered major casualties; this did not happen due to passivity but rather because of an active policy of neutrality backed up by force. When the German troops invaded Denmark on April 9, 1940, the navy was ordered not to intervene.

Inter-War Period

After the Great War, many German sea mines in Danish waters. The torpedo boat Swordfish photographed by the mine on December 14, 1918. The torpedo boat hit the anchored German mine. The explosion was 3 men killed and eight wounded. The stern was completely destroyed and had to be replaced.

In the second half of the 1800s brought major technological advances in the naval area. Especially the invention of submarines, naval mines and torpedo had great significance for the Danish Navy. These weapons fit well to the shallow Danish waters and meant that the Danish Navy had a credible defense that might bother hostile powers, which considered to invade Denmark. In the 1920s and 1930s was the defense budget is so small that the Navy no longer posed a particular threat to any enemies.

World War II

On 09 April 1940, Denmark was occupied by Germany. As the cooperation between the government and the occupation forces collapsed April 29, 1943. The Navy scuttled the fleet's ships to make them useless to the Germans. August 29, 1943 became the turning point, where the navy refused to cooperate and scuttled the ships. Throughout the war British aircraft threw thousands of sea mines in Danish waters, to annoy the German warships.

Cold War

After Denmark had been liberated from the German occupation in 1945, it was in many places dangerous to sail around the Danish waters, because that flowed tens of thousands of unexploded naval mines around. The Navy immediately began mine clearance and got rid of the most dangerous mines, but the task of clearing mines from the First and Second World War is still going on today.

In 1945 the Navy had once again rebuilt from scratch. The cheap sea mines was again the cornerstone of Danish søforsvar.Oprustningen with navies stock took off after Denmark in 1949 joined the NATO and was part of the US arms assistance. The Navy desperately needed new equipment for Denmark had an important role in the defense of the Baltic Sea, if war broke out with the Soviet Union and their allies. Cold War fleet peaked in the 1980s when the Navy had fast missile torpedo boats, heavily armed frigates and corvettes modern submarines and a sømineberedskab which could be activated very quickly. The threat of an invasion from the east fell around 1990, after which the Navy oriented more towards international operations.

During the Cold War, it was anticipated that the Soviet Baltic Fleet (including Polish and East German navies) would punch through the Kattegat and Skagerrak straits into the North Sea. The East German 5th Army would advance northwards into Jutland, reinforced by coastal landings by Soviet Baltic Fleet Marines, East German 29th Armored Regiment, and Polish 7th 'Lujycka' Naval Assault Division, and by drops by Soviet Parachute Divisions, East German 40th Parachute Battalion and Polish 6th 'Pomeranian' Air Assault Division.

During the Cold War the Navy's ships were relatively small. It was well-suited for navigation in the inner Danish waters, but not so good for operations on the oceans. By 1980 its inventory of large frigates dropped from 5 to 2 (which completed a mid-life overhaul), backed up by 3 to 4 patrol escorts and light frigates (the new Nils Juel class replacing the Triton class). The submarine force has doubled from 3 to 6 units, and plans were being made to replace some older submarines with German Type-210 units. The fast attack force remained constant at around 16 units, ten of which were of the new Willemoes class. As in Norway and Sweden, the minelayer force of seven units was reasonably up to date, but the small force of eight coastal minesweepers was unchanged since the 1950s.

By 1983, according to the naval development program, refitting the "Soloven" class torpedo fast attack craft with anti-ship missiles by 1985 was planned. In addition, three new submarines (type not yet determined) and several minesweepers were to be added to the Navy.

The naval forces acquired three Norwegian "Kobben" class (type 207) submarines. By 1988 they were undergoing modernization in Bergen; it was to be completed by the early 1990s. By this time two "Delfinen" class submarines, built in 1959 and 1964, would be retired from the inventory.

A program to build a rather large series (16 units) of "Standard Flex 300" boats with a displacement of around 300 tons was under way. A possibility for accommodating different armament on the same standard hull depending on the missions was foreseen. The boat can be used as a minelayer, a minesweeper, a missile boat or a torpedo boat. The refitting time averages from 24 to 48 hours. The prototype boat was transferred to the navy at the end of last year, and in the future the rate of construction was to be maintained at two units per year. The press reported that their peacetime function would be to patrol in the straits zone of the Baltic Sea.

Preparations were being made for construction of four new frigates with a displacement of 2,000 tons to replace "Hvidbjornen" class ships.

Post-Cold War

The Navy resolved a number of more civilian tasks. Some of the most challenging is the assertion of sovereignty, fisheries inspection and sea rescue in Greenlandic and Faroese waters. The Navy long had special vessels are built to operate in the harsh conditions of the North Atlantic. Currently, the four patrol vessels of Thetis-class, two patrol vessels of Knud Rasmussen class and an inspection cutter Adglek class.

The Navy changed some of the smaller ships out of three frigates of Iver Huitfeldtklassen and two support ships Absalon class. The new ships have already proved their worth in combating piracy in the Horn of Africa.